Checkmate
by jhanny6
Summary: A hopefully intriguing world where the universe is simply a chessboard for powers beyond our understanding
1. Chapter 1

"Yet again, you surprise me." an even, smooth voice said. The figure lifted an arm and shook back the pure white sleeve to reveal a perfect hand with long, strong fingers. The hand hovered over a piece on the chessboard, while the other hand stroked its cleanly shaven chin in deep thought. The figure's eyes came to rest on its opponent and long time friend as the other figure let out a harsh laugh, before replying in a rough and gravelly tone.

"I know that you sometimes struggle to understand why one would play sub-optimally, despite the fact that that unease is why I do it. It unsettles you, knowing that I'd willingly go down material just to have a chance to see the grin slide off of your face." The other being dragged a scarred and calloused hand through the wild beard that sprouted from its jaw, a faint stream of smoke rippling off of his form. The white figure decided on its move, and picked up its knight, weighing it in its hand before placing it firmly and precisely in the correct position.

"Check." The dark figure grunted, taking the knight with its bishop, before the white pawn recaptured the material. The dark figure moved its queen, haphazardly placing her onto the board such that she was clearly on a particular square, but not centered. The light figure frowned softly, a slight wrinkle passing across its otherwise flawless face.

"J'adoube." it said, correcting the black queen's position out of habit, causing the dark figure to laugh once again. It moved its own king out of check, frowning as the black queen once again gave a check, keeping up the pressure. The light figure continued running with its king, before pausing as the black queen infiltrated all the way into the position, allowing it to gain the upper hand as the white queen gave a check to the black king. The figure smirked as its queen moved forwards, giving another check. The king had only one square open to him, and the dark figure grimaced. The queen moved once more, protected by the pawn.

"Checkmate."

"Indeed. Do you wish to play again?"

"Of course."

(||||||)

Harry found himself, once again, lying in the shrubbery under the window, listening to the news. He was sure that any news of Voldemort would be headline-worthy, even in the muggle version of events. If he was being honest, he was merely listening out for any odd attacks, disappearances, or funny deaths, but none of those had appeared to have happened, even though it had been more than a month since the return of Voldemort. Harry wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead as the anchors began to wrap up the news programme, frustrated at the utter lack of information from any of his friends, angry at being, once again, cast aside and stuck at the Dursley's while his friends got to at least be together.

Suddenly, a loud crack was heard, a sound which most muggles would attribute to a backfiring car, but was to any wizard the unmistakable sound of apparation. Harry shot to his feet, pulling his wand out of his pocket, before smashing his head on the bottom of the window frame with a grunt of pain. His uncle ran towards him, purple in the face, and he barely managed to dodge out of range of the meaty fists that grasped for his neck.

"Put it away." uncle Vernon growled, halfway between fury and terror, but incapable of reaching any further to grab Harry, who was still scanning the hedgerows for any signs of death eaters and the like. Harry slipped the narrow wooden shaft back into his jeans before turning and walking away from the house. "I haven't finished with you _boy_!" Harry turned and raised an eyebrow at his uncle, who now had a vein pulsing at his temple, before deliberately continuing away from him, heading out towards the second least vandalised playground in the neighbourhood.

(||||||)

Harry sat on the singular intact swing, watching the vibrant colours of the sunset paint the sky like a canvas. He swung his legs idly, kicking up gravel in boredom. That emotion summed up Harry's summer fairly well, seeing as he'd finished his homework the week he had returned simply out of having nothing else to do. Harry had written letter after letter to his friends initially, asking constantly for details and any information, but simply getting frustrated when he learned how they were together, in a place surrounded by other wizards and witches, but apparently knew _nothing_. They had even stopped replying to him, after he'd sent them a flurry of frustrated letters in an attempt to gain _any_ information from them.

Now, Harry took to wandering the neighbourhood, sitting in a park for an afternoon and reading textbooks or other academic texts. He'd disguised them as simple muggle literature to avoid questions about them, but he'd finished all of his books and had yet to go to diagon alley, and so he hadn't had an opportunity to pick up any more.

Harry knew he'd overstayed his welcome at the park when he heard loud, obnoxious teenage laughter, and smelled smoke and cheap beer, all of which heralded the arrival of Dudley's gang. They froze when they saw him sitting on the swing, and muttered among themselves for a few seconds before they broke out in laughter.

"Alright big D?" Harry called out, "beat up another ten year old? Very brave of you, seeing as it was, what..." Harry pretended to count them, "eight on one?"

"This one deserved it," slurred Dudley, "insulted mum."

"If he said she looked like a cross between a horse and a giraffe, that's not an insult, Dud, that's natural selection! In fact, he could have made it an insult about the entire family, if he'd continued and said that you looked like a pig, and your dad looks like a sunburned elephant." They jeered a bit at Harry at that, and he rolled his eyes, standing up and brushing dust off of his jeans.

"Well, I'm going home, you might want to come too, I know how you're scared of the dark and all."

"Not as scared as you."

"What do you mean?"

"I hear you. Every night, crying in your sleep," his voice turned into a high pitched caricature of a child's, "' _d-don't kill Cedric! Kill me instead!_ ' who is Cedric, your boyfriend?" The sun finally dipped below the horizon, throwing shadows over the scene, and a bitterly cold wind whipped at their clothing.

"I'm leaving now." Harry pushed through the group, and Dudley followed him, scratching his oversized neck with one hand as he plodded along beside him.

Harry was the first to notice, as the crickets buzzing in the grass fell silent, and the stars began to go out. Harry pulled his wand out.

"But you're not allowed to use that!"

"Shut up, Dudley."

"I'll tell mum! They won't let you back!"

"I said shut up!"

Suddenly, Harry heard the all-too-familiar rattling breaths behind him, and the ice closed in on his heart.

"S-stop that."

"I'm not doing anything!"

But Dudley didn't believe him. A ham-sized fist connected with the side of his head, and he crashed to the floor, lights flashing in front of his eyes. A dementor appeared over him, and he scrabbled to find his wand. Harry felt a cold hand grip his ankle, and drag him inexorably backwards. He heard a choking sound, and looked up to see the dementor forcing _something_ which protruded from its hood down Dudley's throat. He returned to finding his wand, but was unable.

" _Lumos!_ "

The wand lit up, illuminating the dementor who was holding it. The creature released his leg, bringing its other hand up to grip the wand too, before snapping it in half with a horrific splintering sound, and a flash of red smoke. Harry went limp, losing all hope as his only tool, only method of defence against the foul creature above him was destroyed. But more than that, his wand was as much a part of him as an arm, and the loss of it was as terrible and serious.

The dementor floated over him, pinning his arms to the ground with one of its oversized hands, and lowering its hood with the other. The slow rattling breaths somehow sounded excited, and a long proboscis extended from a ragged hole of flesh that was in the center of the dementor's face. The creature gripped his face with one hand, forcing his head up towards it, and pushing rotted fingers into his mouth, prying it open even as Harry gagged. The proboscis wormed its way down Harry's throat, pulsating slightly as it went, before it stopped, about level with his chest. He could feel it, moving around deep within him, and fought down the wave of panic that threatened to overcome him.

The _thing_ stopped moving around, and he felt a sudden and painful jerk behind his navel, as well as from his scar. Harry nearly blacked out from the pain as the pain in his forehead mounted. It was an even greater pain than any cruciatus curse, even greater than the agony of basilisk venom. Then the pain began to move, sliding down from his forehead towards the end of the proboscis, painfully cold inside him. The pain left his body and he could have wept from relief, before a flash of golden light ripped the dementor from the top of his body, eliciting a screech from the creature. Harry sensed pure, abject terror from the creature which was commonly believed to be unkillable as the golden light ate away at it, burning it into dust. The other dementor, having finished destroying his cousin's soul, simply fled, chittering with fear. Harry gripped the end of the proboscis that protruded form his mouth, and pulled. He almost blacked out as he felt the thing move within him again, but he had to get the foul thing out of him.

After it was removed, Harry slumped back onto the ground in a state of exhaustion, noticing neither the golden aura that played around him, nor the black sludge that oozed from the severed end of the proboscis.

AN:

The chess puzzle is this, note the blunder on move 5 by black.

 **1... Bxf6 2. exf6 Qe8+ 3. Kd2 Qd8+ 4. Kc2Qa5 5. Qg5+ Kf8(?!) 6. Qg7+ Ke8** **7\. Qe7#**

This chapter was shorter than what will be normal, just an introduction to a (hopefully) intriguing world. I'll try to dodge cliche, but I'm not making any other promises.


	2. Chapter 2

It is generally considered to be disconcerting when one wakes up in a pool of blood. It is rather more disconcerting to find oneself passed out in a pool of your own blood, pinned to the ground by a rotten body of a soul-sucking demon, and next to the mindlessly gibbering husk of your cousin. Nevertheless, this is the position that Harry found himself in upon awakening, covered in blood and left for dead.

"Oh my!" came a voice from the entrance to the underpass that Harry had fled to when the dementors had swooped after him.

"Mrs Figg! Help please!" harry cried out, not caring that she likely couldn't even see the issue of the dementor holding him down, but realising that the fact that he was covered in blood, and his once-cousin was making unintelligible sounds on the floor next to him.

"Just a second, Harry, I'll just get a message to Dumbledore then I'll help you out from under that dementor." the elderly woman continued as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened, as though she had not dropped a bombshell on the worldview of the already shaken teenager that was currently pinned beneath the corpse of an often thought unkillable monster.

Mrs Figg fiddled with some trinket that she had pulled form the pocket of her overlarge coat, which let out a soft blue flash and vanished, before she started forwards and dragged at the dementor's robes. She made a noise of disgust as some foul miasma seeped into her skin from them, but she remained unable to move the being.

"Where's your wand, Harry? I can't move it on my own."

"It broke." Harry spoke listlessly, and the reality of the situation finally began to sink into him; how close he had come to death, or worse, was beginning to be apparent to him. He gestured to the fragments of holly and phoenix feather on the floor of the tunnel.

"Oh dear," intoned Mrs Figg, "that's… a problem."

At that, a crack echoed through the tunnel, and Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, was stood in the tunnel, accompanied by a faint smell of lemony sweets. He frowned, seeing Harry pinned under the creature, but pulled out his wand and levitated the body off of the boy.

"Harry, can you hear me?" he said, hoping that the boy had not met the same fate as his cousin, and was relieved to see the tiny, almost imperceptible nod that confirmed that the boy's sentience remained. "I am going to transfer you to the Hogwarts infirmary, I believe you are in need of quite some treatment." his eyes found the broken wand on the ground, and his expression turned sorrowful, "I will also look into getting your wand replaced. It would not do for you to remain without magic." The headmaster rose and eyed the body of the dementor, moving the corpse to Hogwarts castle with a flick of his wand. A tear etched its way down his face as he eyed the husk of Dudley Dursley, but nothing could be done for him now. The boy's soul was gone, consumed by the monster that had attacked him, and the body would never recover. It would be a kindness, mused the aged teacher, to end what little remained of the life within the ex-human's body, to spare the parents the torment of hope, and the financial ruin that would surely come as they searched for a way to cure their son.

"Arabella, would you kindly escort Harry to the infirmary, and explain to madam Pomfrey what has happened here? I must arrange circumstances here to minimise the damage that shall occur. The elderly squib nodded, and removed another trinket from her pockets. She took Harry by the arm and vanished as the portkey sucked them through space towards the infirmary. Dumbledore sighed and absently twirled his wand in his hands. Another flick of his wand had a second body, one which was the precise image of Sirius Black, splayed out across the floor. The spell was one from an obscure dark tome which Dumbledore had found many years ago, and had since sequestered in his private library out of fear that some dark wizard would use it for its original purpose; creation of an army of inferi of unlimited size. The image created was a literal perfect replica of the original form of the witch or wizard that it was used on, and as such was perfectly suited to fake the death of oneself or a comrade. Dumbledore added some blood around the head of 'Sirius,' and caved in the back of his skull. Dumbledore then added a knife on the floor, pressed into the hand of the decoy body, and coated the knife with blood from Dudley's husk. Finally, he slit Dudley's throat with a spell.

Dumbledore replaced his wand with a sigh, wiping a small spot of blood from his cheekbone, before vanishing with the characteristic soft crack.

( | | | | | | )

Hogwarts infirmary was usually pretty quiet over the summers, a fact that was greatly appreciated by the matron in charge of the ward, and chief healer madam Pomfrey. Normally she only had to deal with the odd patient from one of Dumbledore's schemes, or some overflow from St Mungo's is things were particularly bad there. Today, however, the infirmary was a hive of activity, as Harry had inexplicably survived a brush with a pair of dementors, with a broken wand. After ensuring that Harry's soul was in fact still intact, the stern witch put him through every diagnostic test in her arsenal, and yet was unable to find any issue at all with him. Contrary to that, Harry was better than ever somehow, other than feeling the after-effects of shock and exhaustion.

Presently, Dumbledore arrived, and similarly to the matron began to perform a myriad of his own diagnoses on the boy. The headmaster frowned, and called a house elf to send for Snape before he leaned down and peered at Harry's scar. The old man made a noise of astonishment, and pushed his glasses further up his nose in order to observe the scar more clearly. Snape, fond as always of overly dramatic entrances, chose that moment to sweep through the doors, cloak billowing behind him as he strode over to the headmaster.

"You called for me?" he spoke in his slow, low tone reserved for only the most secretive of subjects.

"Yes, I need you to take a look at something. Do you remember what we discussed shortly after Mr Potter's return from the maze in my office? Pertaining to Harry?"

"Yes, I recall that conversation." snape spoke uneasily, as that conversation had been one of the few times that he'd properly lost it with the headmaster and his manipulations, pushing his pieces around and sacrificing them to have the most impact possible.

"I believe the situation that I spoke of has been resolved. Would you kindly take a look."

Snape took Dumbledore's place over Harry, and withdrew his wand. He gently traced over the outline of that famous scar, murmuring an incantation as he did so. Snape raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed. The situation appears to have solved itself. Now the question must become how did Potter survive a dementor's kiss? I was led to understand that his wand was broken, and so how it it possible for him to be here, intact?"

"I'm afraid I do not know. I wrote to my primary contact in the department of mysteries, but not only did they not know, they told me that any research and enquiries about dementors, unlike most things in that department, have to go through the minister's office. I believe this rule was put into place after an experiment gone awry led to the deaths of all but one unspeakable, which was almost an unmitigated catastrophe."

"So our ideas are as good as theirs, as they have not studied the beings thoroughly enough to conclude either way?"

"It would appear to be that way. Now, I find myself in need of magical items for the construction of a new wand for Mr Potter. Normally, wands have no pre-existing connection with their owners, due to the fact that wands are usually acquired at age eleven, but my unspeakable friend told me that it is rather well known wandlore - at least in wandmakers circles - that having a wand with some kind of connection to you appears to be beneficial for the user. That basilisk from which the venom was extracted had bitten Harry, and so the same venom would be in his blood. I was thinking of using dementor ash and basilisk venom for the core."

Snape narrowed his eyes at Dumbledore.

"You want to put concentrated essence of two of the darkest creatures into a wand, and have the person that we are pinning all of our hopes on wield it? Do you want him to go mad with power? You cannot put such dark essence into a wand without balancing it out. Perhaps phoenix tears, if Fawkes is willing to provide them, of course?"

Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully.

"Yes, I see how that could work. Mr Potter also has phoenix tears in his bloodstream after the basilisk incident, so it would have the same sympathetic effects I suppose."

"Did you know that dementors had proboscides? It would have been useful information for a combating the foul things."

"No. As far as I know, nobody has ever seen one up close and kept their mind after the fact. This corpse represents the first opportunity to properly study them up close. Perhaps I will be able to find a way to reliably kill them, rather than just warding them off. We know it is at least possible form this incident, which is a lot further on than we were yesterday.

( | | | | | | )

Harry opened his eyes and groaned despite the softness of the sheets that he was wrapped in. The hospital wing, his brain supplied after a few seconds. Harry pushed himself up and reached for his glasses and wand, before he froze as his hand touched broken fragments.

So it had not been some mere nightmare as he had hoped.

Harry put his glasses on, and took the pair of splintered halves of a wand, one in each hand. They softly sparked as he held them, a weak greeting from his faithful companion through the wizarding world. Harry felt a tear drip from his chin, landing on the end of the wand which let out a much brighter spark, and a small puff of steam. Nothing seemed real, surely his cousin was not dead, surely his wand would be fixable. Harry's eyes landed on the man in the chair beside his bed, snoring softly with his head hanging forwards uncomfortably, with the mane of hair covering his face. Sirius, thought Harry. He moved to touch him, to wake him, but something stopped him. Sirius wouldn't want to see him like this, surely, thought Harry.

A short while later, a jerking snore from the chair captured Harry's wandering attention, and he watched as the man within yawned and stretched, twisting his head from side to side to try and clear the crick that had formed overnight.

"Hey, pup," came the soft, deep voice of his godfather, and the flow of tears that had petered out returned with full force, causing Sirius to shift from the chair onto the bed and wrap an arm around Harry.

Sirius said nothing, just sat beside Harry until the tears stopped, before offering him a conjured handkerchief to dry his eyes on. Silk, Harry absently noted. Just then, an owl flew in, carrying a softly pink envelope, which folded itself into a mouth and began to speak to him.

"Mr. H. Potter.

We have received intelligence that you performed a lumos charm at twenty-three minutes past nine yesterday evening in a muggle-inhabited area and in the presence of a muggle.

The severity of this breach of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underaged Sorcery has resulted in your expulsion from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ministry representatives will be calling at your place shortly to destroy your wand.

Yours sincerely,

Mafalda Hopkirk, improper use of magic office."

The letter then unfolded itself into a transcript of what he had just heard, but did not want to believe. Silent seconds ticked by, and Harry swallowed nervously.

Suddenly, a second owl flew in, dropped off its own pink envelope, and left out of the same open window.

"Mr H. Potter,

Further to our previous correspondence approximately four minutes ago, we are revising your expulsion from Hogwarts on the grounds that you attend a disciplinary hearing in late August. The precise time and date of this hearing will be provided to you no later than the last day of july. Please have all necessary evidence and witness statements prepared beforehand in order to expedite the process of the hearing.

As we received intelligence that your wand has already been destroyed, we do not recommend that you purchase a new wand until after the hearing has been completed, as it would be a waste to destroy a wand needlessly. Additionally, as it is not term-time, you should have no need of your wand until school resumes, and as such it should be no great loss to wait until a verdict is reached.

Yours sincerely,

Mafalda Hopkirk, improper use of magic office."

Harry frowned as he held the twin sheets of paper in his hand, the colour having faded along with the speaking enchantment. While he appreciated the logic behind the advice to not replace his wand, he felt naked and vulnerable without one. Sirius was silent beside him, trying to gauge his reaction.

"Looks like I'm going to have to break another few rules. No way am I not having a wand for up to six weeks." said Harry, causing Sirius to grin at him.

"That's my boy!"

( | | | | | | )

"You blundered that pawn, old friend," muttered the pale figure, as he took it with his own bishop.

"Blundered or sacrificed?" replied the dark one with a grin filled with decaying teeth.


	3. Chapter 3

For Harry, the days dribbled past long and slow, as he was stuck firmly in the hospital wing at Hogwarts. Madam Pomfrey was attentive and kind, sure, and of course it was a vast improvement over his previous situation at the Dursleys, but he found that he had even less freedom, and even less mental stimulation in his current place, unable to leave the hospital wing. His professors, along with the matron, had carried out test after test after test, checking every vital sign that existed, and some that were rather dubious too, but found nothing. Perhaps more surprisingly, his vital signs had even improved, he felt more alive than ever, after the raw throat and aching bones went away. According to the Headmaster, the dementor must have found within him some kind of curse that it had mistaken for a soul, and removed that instead of Harry's own soul. Being a curse, once it was removed, the dementor naturally died, and Harry naturally recovered.

Harry supposed that made some sense, he still needed his glasses, and his hair still stuck up at odd angles no matter what he did with it, but in just a few short weeks of doing nothing but sitting in bed and reading, he had grown significantly, and his ribs were less pronounced than ever, something that Harry thought could only be a good thing. Even his mind felt sharper, clearer, and he was suddenly able to make leaps of logic and intuition that would have escaped him entirely just a few days ago. Whereas he once would have found his textbooks dull and disinteresting, now he ate them up, and found that he could write down chunks of them verbatim, something that Sirius informed him had been a habit of his own mother.

Harry was broken from his musings as the doors to the hospital wing swung open, admitting the headmaster as well as Snape. Harry stuck a scrap of parchment in his book and closed it, giving the pair of them his full attention.

"Harry, good to see that you are keeping busy, it wouldn't do to dwell on events too closely." Dumbledore spoke with his customary grandfatherly tone, while Snape checked his nails in an almost bored fashion. Dumbledore cleared his throat softly before continuing.

"Yes, well, as your wand was broken, I took the liberty of commissioning a new one from mister Ollivander, and he only just finished it." from the pocket of his robes, Dumbledore produced a slim, handsome leather box, and handed it to Harry.

"Thank-you, sir. I was wondering when I would get the opportunity to get a new one, as the hearing is in only two weeks and I have yet to have been discharged from the hospital wing." Dumbledore chuckled at his words, and Snape rolled his eyes slightly.

"Well, try the wand out. I am confident that it will be a perfect match for you."

Harry obliged, and slid the upper portion of the box off, revealing a beautifully carved wand made of a pale wood, sitting on a blue velvet cushion. He picked the wand up, and felt it humming to him, before a soft burst of green, the exact shade of Harry's eyes, flashed throughout the room.

" _Expecto Patronum!_ " Harry cried, and watched in dismay as instead of his regular stag, an enormous stallion, with the wings to match, sprang forth from his wand. Harry frowned.

"That's not my patronus. It's simply not." Dumbledore frowned, but it was Snape who answered.

"It is known, that life changing events, especially traumatic ones, can cause one's very essence to change. As the patronus is a reflection of that very essence, it makes sense that it would have changed after what happened to you." Harry frowned at his words, feeling like he had lost a part of his father."

"What's even in this wand anyway?" he asked, changing the topic to keep his mind off of it.

"It is a core of dementor ash, mixed with phoenix tears. Mr Ollivander was unable to incorporate the basilisk venom, it was too destructive, and simply ate through the wood or ruined the phoenix tears. Instead of that, he affixed a scale from the hide of the basilisk onto the end to act as a focus, and as you can see, the final product is phenomenal. It will, if it conforms to the standard nature of wands, be an incredibly powerful wand, excelling in both destructive and healing magics alike, but it will be incredible in a duel. I want you to promise me, Harry, that you will only use this wand in a fight in self defence. Its nature is to devour, as well as to heal, and it will revel and excel in taking lives, but I want you to promise me that you will only protect with this wand, never attack. Taking a life comes with a price that is seldom worth paying." Harry nodded in response to the headmaster's words, before Snape leaned in closer and began to perform the routine checks that they had been doing for the past few weeks. After a while, he stepped back and nodded.

"Everything is in order, Albus, I don't think it's worth keeping him here any longer. Perhaps he could go to Headquarters, as the weasley brood is already there, and no doubt he wishes to see them."

( | | | | | | )

Number twelve, Grimmauld Place was not the sort of building one would typically expect a paramilitary organisation fighting against terrorist forces to use as a base of operations, but then again, looks can be deceiving. Hary shivered in the chill of the entryway, peering through the gloom at the black marble floor and heavy, dark wood panelling. Whispers seemed to come from behind several stained curtains that lined the walls, and Harry got the feeling that it would not do to awaken whatever was hidden behind them.

Sirius led Harry up the stairs, having apparated him from just outside the Hogwarts wards to just outside the wards around Grimmauld Place. Harry turned to ask a question as he spotted the row of severed elf heads lining the wall, but Sirius simply pressed a finger to his lips and pointed towards a door on his left.

"Dinner will be served after the meeting is over, someone will come and get you. Try not to let the decor bother you too much, this house belonged to my parents, and it was the least I could do to offer it to Dumbledore as the ministry is still out for my blood." Sirius spoke in a whisper.

Harry opened the door, and just had time to register the greeting hoot of his snowy owl, whom he had sent ahead of him, before a bushy brown-haired cannonball struck him with a squeal.

"Harry! Oh my word I was so worried about you! Two dementors in Surrey, and they're trying to pin charges on you for it? It's unheard of, and completely illegal! I read about the test case in 1832 where Ogden Smethwyck was forced to use magic to defend himself at the age of twelve, and he got off with just a warning, so it's completely unfair!" Hermione spoke all of this in one breath, which caused Ron - who was standing behind her - to laugh.

"Merlin, Hermione! Give the man some air!" The red-head gave Harry a quick hug as Hermione released him. "You've grown! You're almost as tall as me now!" he remarked in surprise.

"Yeah, well surviving a Dementor's kiss can do that to you." The other two blanched at Harry's candid words.

"Look, mate, we're sorry for leaving you with the Dursleys for so long, but we really didn't have a choice. Dumbledore didn't even let us write anything, we wanted to, but he was really clear."

"You couldn't have wanted to tell me stuff that badly then, or you just would have done. And as for coming and getting me, well people saying you shouldn't never stopped you before."

"Harry, you're being unfair, we really did want to, but you know Dumbledore, he made sure we didn't even have time to consider coming for you. We've been so busy!" Hermione spoke quickly, trying to appease him, but as soon as the words left her mouth Harry's expression darkened and she clapped her hands over her mouth.

"So you've been so busy have you…"

"Hasn't exactly been a picnic mate…"

" **Well you were still here, weren't you! You still know what's been going on! You've no idea how mindlessly bored I've been, nicking papers out of bins just to hope to catch some information on Voldemort!** " At this point, Harry ran out of steam, and fell silent, except for the sound of his heavy breathing, as though he had just been running.

Twin cracks rang around the room, and Fred and George appeared out of nowhere, with identical smirks on their faces.

"You know its not good to bottle up your emotions, Harry!-"

"Yeah, you just need to let it all out!-"

"Besides, I don't think that they heard you over the road, you might want to repeat yourself for their sakes."

"Hi, Gred, Forge." Harry muttered, greeting his long term quidditch teammates, unable to hold back a smile at seeing them.

"Well, Harry, as your dulcet tones informed us, you're feeling a little hard done by in terms of information. We feel like we might have a proposition for you, with the first return on your investments."

"Mister Harry Potter, we-"

"Misters Weasley and Weasley-"

"Proudly present the wonderful-"

"The fantastic extendible ear!"

"It lets you hear conversations that you're not supposed to by sneaking under the door and providing an ear closer to the source." At this point, Ginny came into the room, dragging what looked like a thumb-thick, flesh-coloured line of string.

"The ears are a no-go, Mum's gone and put an imperturbable charm on the door, they can't get under."

"Shit."

Footsteps on the stairway caused the rapid flight of the twins, and Ginny hurried to hide the string by throwing it on top of the wardrobe, out of sight. Molly Weasley stuck her head round the door.

"Harry! So good to see you! The meeting's finished, so you all need to wash up before coming down to the dining room. I don't know if Sirius has mentioned it, but you need to be quiet in the hallways, you really don't want to wake anything up."

The four of them found the handsome bathroom, and washed their hands diligently, before proceeding down to the dining room, where many papers were strewn across the table, evidence of the meeting that had just finished. Harry tried to catch a glimpse of them, but before he could see any detail they were cleared away by an irate looking mrs Weasley who blustered about how these thing should be cleared away immediately following any of their meetings.

( | | | | | | )

Harry lay back in the large bed he had been afforded within the vast mansion that was Sirius' childhood home, thinking. Was this the home that he could have shared with Sirius if Wormtail had not escaped on that night in third year? Harry twirled his wand around his hand as you might twirl a pen, staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, and listening to the deep, rumbling snores that came from the next room over. Harry often wondered if there was something genuinely wrong with Ron's lungs, as despite being a fairly healthy weight, he snored like a chainsaw, occasionally even waking himself up with the din. Harry sighed, and placed his wand on the bedside table next to him, and rolled over to sleep.

( | | | | | | )

"You do realise that my queen is not trapped, right? After pawn takes, she has a retreat square." The white-robed figure said, tapping his fingernails softly on the marble chessboard.

"Yes, but I win my pawn back, and I have much more activity than you; you'll be stuck defending for a while." replied the dark figure.


End file.
